I’m not promising we’ll get all the way to 200, but while we wait for Neal’s new book to come out via University of Regina Press, we can enjoy some of Neal’s newer Cree word studies via Facebook.

kâ-kantakîwi-sâsisoht pâhkahâhkwân ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’

There is some variation in the stem “to fry.” In Arok Wolvengrey’s dictionary, one stem is listed as sâsâpiskisikê. I think that this stem implies “frying” by pan because of the root -âpisk which is embedded in it. Of course, a deep fryer of KFC would not be done by a frying pan, so a more basic form is simply sâsisa “fry it”. But since chicken is animate, we need to use sâsis(w)-. The –oht ending on sâsisoht” implies that the verb is passive; that one who fries is unspecified and that the chicken must receive the action of the verb; e.g. “it is fried” in English. pâhkahâhkwân is the stem for “chicken”.